Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

Just worked with a user earlier today who was receiving this message when attempting to direct export a reference from Google Scholar via Firefox - restarting his Mac made this error message disappear.

Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

I am also having the same issue on my Mac; restarting my computer does not work. Can you please advise what I can do to get around this? At this stage it looks like switching my reference manager to Mendeley or similar is my only hope.

Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

Also on X8 for Mac. I also had the same issue and in spite of multiple restarts, trashing the plist and also resetting the preferences; nothing worked. It rendered my library unusable. The library had so many issues that I got to the point where every launch of the software resulted in the spinning pinwheel of doom (Mac users will understand!). So I ended up going on a rush after launch to change the preferences to not automatically open the 'problem' library. Then with the library closed all I could do was to run the recovery option on the library (having closed it). However, the the 'recovered' library provided the "open it again later" message, so I disabled all account synchronisation and then I created a new library based on a compressed export. Having done the recovery, this at least allowed me to finally successfully use the compressed library option to export my main group set from the original library as the basis for the aforementioned new library. I was then able to drag and drop some additional references from the original library into the new version.

This process was pretty time-consuming and I have been working professionally with EndNote for years. I wanted to share this in case it is helpful to others. For my part I shall be backing up this particular library offline as the auto-synchronisation account check-in process seemed to preempt the issue (it just seemed to get stuck in an authentication cycle).

Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

Restarting... cute idea, but like all the others in this thread, it didn't work for me. I am using a new install of X8 on a new MacBook pro with the libraries migrated from a 10.6.8 mac air with EN x4... which worked fine. Before getting to this message, the program always goes through an exercise of "indexing" all the PDFs (9K+) so that adds time to it. And this is just one of aobut 10 libraries that don't work now.

It sounds like the developer should do something about this or let us all know what quirk they failed to mention earlier.

Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

I have the same issue on my Mac. This morning I tried to open my custom library when I was offline and I got the message "This library is currently being used by someone else". Some hours later I run the update for Endnot 8.2, but nothing changed. I can open other libraries but not my main library. What can I do?

Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

I have seen this before if the library you are opening is in a cloud storage location like Dropbox or the iCloud. You can check if your system is set to use the iCloud for the Desktop and Documents folder:

Click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen.

Select System Preferences... from the dropdown menu.

Click on iCloud in the Preferences window.

Click on Options next to iCloud Drive.

See if the box next to Desktop & Documents Folders is checked.

If that option is checked and your library is in either of those locations or a subfolder of them, that can cause this to occur. I would suggest clicking the Go menu and selecting Home. Create a new folder under your Home folder. Next, see if you can repair your library and save the new copy to that new folder. You can try the Standard Recovery steps found here:

Re: "This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later"

I was able to solve this issue, similar setup x8 on a Mac High Sierra.

The library that had the issue was backed up using iCloud (in Documents), if yours is the same make sure that both the .enl file, and the .data folder are downloaded to your computer (by clicking the cloud with the down-arrow icon).

I was getting the error when I had downloaded the .enl (which is used when you go to open a library), but not the associated .data folder.